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Rogue PvE guide
Working with Other Classes Things Rogues want Non-Rogues to know General * Stealth is not invisibility, although some don't know. * Don't make your character automatically follow a rogue (without letting the rogue know); sometimes we stealth and sneak up on mobs. * Adrenaline Rush and Blade Flurry (available only to Combat Rogues) require that a Rogue be standing within melee range of a mob. Please don't move a mob around or draw aggro from across the room when a Rogue uses these abilities. * Rogues can deal damage well but cannot take damage well. They tank about like a Druid in caster form without the ability to self heal, although rogues generally have a better chance to dodge or parry an attack, especially using abilities like Evasion (5 Min Cooldown, though). Rogues do not always need to be rescued from being attacked, especially vs. casting mobs (we can Kick them out of spells) and even tough physical attacks (we can use Evasion). In a pinch we can Vanish too, so save the healers first. * Don't forget that rogues do need heals. Not to say that it is more important to heal a rogue than a tank, however rogues do have to deal with taking some damage, and a dead rogue means a lot less DPS. * Killing a mob with large burst damage almost certainly leaves a Rogue with wasted combo points. Try to avoid doing so, so that the points can be spent on a Slice and Dice or Envenom. * Although Stealth is not Invisibility, it can severely shorten the Aggro range, we can sometimes use this to skip Rooms and even floors. Emergencies * If the Rogue gets feared into more mobs, it may be useless to attempt to help him as he may either die sooner than you can help him or hit Vanish and rejoin the group. It is usually easier on the group for the rogue to die than any of the Trinity, and a good rogue should know this ahead of time. * If you draw aggro and cannot handle it, do not run or blink away from the Rogue (or the tank for that matter). The Rogue can almost always generate enough threat to attract the mob and then dump aggro (through Feint or Vanish) on the tank. * If a Rogue with low health Gouges a mob that is attacking them, it's to save their own life - do not immediately remove the gouge. The same goes for Blind. Utility * Sap cannot be used in combat. It takes time to walk over to a mob in order to Sap it. Some people forget these things or never knew them at all. * Do not hit the sapped mob. Unlike Polymorph, Sap cannot be used in combat, so it is important that Sap is the first action; after that, you can pull. If it is very important that the Sap succeeds, don't panic if it fails. The rogue will not break Stealth and can merely try again. This is only possible if you stay out of aggro range! * Sap no longer breaks early on NPCs and will last as long as Polymorph. There is no need to attack the sapped mob as soon as possible. * Distract is not sap! A rogue might distract mobs so that they can better position themselves for a sap; do not assume the sap has happened. Wait for confirmation from the rogue or purple graphic over a mob's head (indicating the sap effect). * If you want the Rogue to fulfill a role other than damage-dealing, such as crowd control (through Sap) kiting (by Crippling Poison and Deadly Throw) or emergency tanking (through Preparation, Ghostly Strike and Evasion), ask beforehand if they can manage it. The Rogue will have a good knowledge of what mobs they can and cannot handle by themselves or with minimal support. * If a CCed mob runs loose, do not put DoTs on it. Ever. If you see a mob that has been blinded, do not put DoTs on it. Positioning * If you are the tank, please remember that many rogues use daggers and do most of their damage from behind the mob. Therefore, please remember two things about tanking while in a group with a rogue: pull the mob far enough into safety so that the rogue can get behind without drawing additional mobs, and stand still so the rogue can DPS instead of reposition every few seconds. Also dont stand tanking a mob with the mobs back to the wall, dagger rogues will want to get behind their target, and the wall, well... gets in the way. Things Non-Rogues want Rogues to know * Don't be impetuous. A rogue co-ordinating with their group is a valuable asset. But one who doesn't do what they want and doesn't wait for people to get ready will only cause their group to wipe out more often than not. * If you're going to stealth and sneak up on a mob or group of mobs then warn your party first. * If you are level 43 in an instance with level 46+ elites you might as well be screaming at the top of your lungs "HERE I AM!" for as good as stealth helps in that situation. Yes, stealth is a great thing, but do NOT play around in stealth when lives other than your own are on the line. * Don't be stealthed if you want to get a buff from the priest/druid. * Stealthed rogues can be hard to spot in darker instances or zones. Bring along a brightly colored pet (which will not aggro mobs) to help your teammates keep track of you. * Rogues aren't tanks. Sounds simple, but seemingly difficult for some to remember. * Leather items are NOT exclusive to rogues. Hunters, enhancement shamans and feral druids need agility, strength, stamina and attack power too. They have the proficiency to use the item and have ever right to roll 'need' for it. Concerning Rogue Services * Just because you have lockboxes in your inventory doesn't mean you should shove them into a Rogue's face as soon as they zone in, even if you include a tip - it's rude. Ask politely and the Rogue will (usually) open them. * Instances in The Burning Crusade tend to contain at least one locked chest. Remember that since the Rogue must unlock the chest, they subsequently get a first look at the loot inside. Things Rogues want New Rogues to know * Learn about Stealth. If possible, have a friend stand still and look at his screen as you move around. Learn how close you can get before being detected. There are talents and items which improve your stealth level. * Use Slice and Dice. * If your party contains 3/5 melee classes and no Warrior, use Expose Armor. Even 2 points will help. * If your group contains a Druid tank, take advantage of the Druid's debuff and use Rupture and Garrote. * When people say "move out of the whirlwind", move out of the whirlwind. * Don't try Hemo daggers. Just don't. * Keep reagents and poisons stocked! You need reagents to Vanish, Blind, and for poisons. How to Help A... Rogue The ability to stunlock a target with two rogues is extremely helpful to a group, or if you're just duo-ing. Most stunlocks start off with both rogues stealthed. One rogue opens up with cheap shot. Once the cheap shot wears off the other rogue does cheap shot. By this time the first rogue should have 5 combo points, which he uses with kidney shot (5 second stun). When this kidney shot wears off, the 2nd rogue does kidney shot. (The timing on these stuns can be greatly helped by either of the StunWatch or CCWatch mods) By this time the target is... hopefully dead. Note that many (almost all) bosses are immune to stun, and likely poisons as well. Warrior * If you are in a group with a warrior, Feint is helpful with keeping the warrior taking the most damage. Some rogues like to show off their ability to do more damage than the warrior and therefore take the aggro away from the warrior (if he isn't using his shouts properly), but good rogues know that Feint is a very important ability that the rogue should utilize in order to make the group more efficient. Healers hate healing classes that shouldn't be taking damage (waste of mana), and rogues shouldn't take damage unless it's from AoE. If you do manage to take Aggro, hit feint if it's not on cooldown, then Gouge to disengage from doing more damage. If all else fails, hit vanish and you'll be fully cleared off the aggro list. * It also might be a good idea to refrain from using your Expose Armor, since warriors use Sunder Armor as a cheap, yet effective way to (re-)gain aggro from mobs. Since a Rogue's "Expose Armor" is the stronger debuff, the warrior debuff will not work and someone in your group might easily die because the warrior can't regain the aggro. Priest * If you are grouped up with a priest, make sure the priest is "safe". Some mobs or players will go straight for the priest if you don't have enough aggro, and healing effectively decreases by 75% if the priest is getting hit by a mob. If a priest (or other cloth caster) suddenly gains aggro in a group fight, they can go down in seconds - especially in high-level instances. A good way of saving your groups priest, and therefore the group, can be to stunlock the mob. Use the Vanish ability, and immediately use your Cheap Shot followed by a Sinister Strike - netting 3 combo points, and then immediately as the mob loses the stun, strike again with Kidney Shot, by this time, a warrior should have been able to regain aggro by sundering or taunting, or at least the mob should aggro you, saving the priest for the moment. Warlock * Try to get a Healthstone off of them, but be nice about it and don't ask if they have already said that they are low on shards * As with all casters, try to grab aggro from them if they accidentally get too much (They are far squishier than you), or are using AoE spells for the group Mage As of patch 2.1, the rogue stays in stealth after sapping a mob. Therefore, it's no longer necessary for rogues and mages to coordinate timing when one saps and the other sheeps. Rather, the rogue should sap first, which won't start the fight. Then the mage should coordinate with the tank/puller for the best time to begin casting polymorph. Since sheeped mobs have a bad habit of wandering about aimlessly in the thick of a fight, Combat-specced rogues with Blade Flurry should avoid using that when a sheep is nearby. Although sap now lasts its full duration on NPCs, once it wears off the mob can't be resapped. However, since mages can repeatedly resheep their mobs, it's often preferable to kill the sapped mob before the sheep. If the sheeped mob needs to be attacked first, experienced mages will know to sheep the sapped mob when it revives (although this might be hard if the mobs haven't been assigned target icons). Druid * As a healer, basically the same as the priest. Yet unlike a priest, druids wear leather, so they're a bit more resilient to damage. Druids can also use Bear Form to increase their armor. Druids have no way to lose aggro outside of Cat Form. This is very mana consuming, and a Druid will most likely choose to go Bear because of its stamina and armor than Cat+Cower, which may fail, or not be enough to shake the mob off. Also be aware that gouge will be less effective, as druids rely often on one or two DoTs. Moonfire, and for balance druids insect swarms. * If the druid is in Moonkin Form, let them tank the damage. In this form they have much higher armor than you, and although it does slow down their casting time, they don't need you protecting them. * In Bear Form, treat as you would a warrior, except expose armor is perfectly acceptable and even encouraged. * In Cat Form, you can make use of some of the same tactics as another rogue, but remember they can't stun opponents outside of the initial pounce, so most of the stun lock is up to you. Hunter If you party with a hunter. The hunter prefers to do the pull, especially if they have been playing a while. If you are doing standard mobs, short fights, the best way is for the hunter to make the pull and then when the mob is on its way towards the hunter the rogues use Cheap Shot to freeze the mob. Hunters can then perform rapid shots or aimed shots. If you have to take a group of mobs, rogues should start with Sap and the hunter can use Freezing trap, which has the same effect as Sap, but (depending on hunter build) usually lasts shorter then Sap. So when first mob is down, always go for the one that's frozen, since it unlocks earlier. This also applies to hunters with Wyvern Sting (which also is dependable on hunters build), a 12 second CC shot. If you party with a hunter to take elites, you should not use any DoTs until the last freezing trap has been used in a fight. But as it is with all special mobs you better have a pretty good agreement on how to take them down. A typical scenario can be the devilsaur elites in Un'goro - which a lot of hunters, druids and rogues love to grind because of their skins to make the Devilsaur Armor. These mobs are definitely soloable, but a rogue/hunter group makes it very fast and without any risk, almost. Here's what the setup should be: Hunter - Hunters Mark - Aimed Shot - Concussive Shot - Multi Shot - Freezing Trap -> Backing up full distance -> Aimed Shot - Rogue Cheap Shot - Both Hunter and Rogue use Dots and any movement impairing effects - Hunter can now use Fear Beast and then the Devilsaur should be quite dead or at least a cakewalk. These setups work very well, but if a rogue gets in a Dot (damage over time), it will break any Freezing trap the hunter might wish to use. But there should be no trouble using dots after the initial freezing trap has been used and the battle starts. Shaman * Ask the Shaman what totems they will be using before you start the instance. Windfury Totem can be a huge benefit to you, but does not stack with your poison on your mainhand weapon. Paladin If you're in a group where a Paladin is serving as the main tank, you need to keep in mind that the Paladin can't hope to keep up with you in DPS, and that he/she also doesn't have the wide range of aggro management tricks that a Warrior has. In other words, if you insist on pounding on the same mob the pally is pounding on with your full DPS, you're going to pull aggro, and the pally won't be able to get it back off of you. This means the mob's attacks are hitting your leather armor rather than the pally's mail or plate armor, which means the healer has to use bigger or more frequent heals to keep you alive, which means any additional mobs in the fight are eventually going to ignore both you and the pally and rush the healer. Two things you can do to help avoid this problem: 1. When fighting the same mob the pally is fighting, focus on your status abilities rather than your damage-dealing abilities. Admittedly, you'll have to do some damage if only to pick up combo points, but following up those attacks with Expose Armor and Kidney Shot will help the party much more than following up with Eviscerate. Similarly, your non-damage dealing poisons (Crippling Poison in particular, to slow runners) will be more useful than your damaging poisons in most group situations. 2. When expecting a large pull, let the pally grab mass aggro and start taking the shots on his or her armor - that's what it's for - and let the main healer focus on keeping the pally up. Then you can choose one opponent the pally isn't fighting and focus all your damage-dealing might on it, while the pally heals you. This helps the pally both by taking one attacking opponent off of him/her, and also by letting the pally heal the damage you take from the mob you're fighting, increasing the aggro the rest of the mobs already have on the pally and helping to ensure that they don't break en masse toward the main (and usually squishy) healer. However, if worse comes to worst and it looks like the party is about to wipe, go all out to try and keep the pally alive. If you die but the pally escapes, he or she can resurrect you and you're all back in business fairly quickly. If you simply Vanish and watch the rest of the party perish, you'll be in for a long stealth run back to the start of the instance, as well as a few choice comments from the rest of the party while they run back in ghost form. Don't let that happen to you. One word: Feint Category:Rogues